Julian Wood
About Julian Wood
Researcher
Julian works on our economics project, primarily examining regional development in New Zealand. With a Master’s in Social Science from Waikato University, Julian brings a depth of experience from his time working as a senior policy analyst for the Department of Labour, where he focused on labour market dynamics, minimum wage and employment legislation, regional development, business dynamics, and immigration.
Most Recent Activity
Losing All Blacks nothing to fear
By Julian Wood
In a surprise move, a group of the top 1 percent of male New Zealand income earners are appealing for…
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Sabotaging the lifts in New Zealand’s tower of wealth
By Julian Wood
If you haven’t seen the 2018 Side Eye Inequality Tower by Toby Morris and Max Rashbrooke, it’s well worth a…
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Irresponsible lenders on borrowed time
By Julian Wood
While borrowing money at an annualised interest rate of up to 693% wouldn’t appear at the top of anyone’s wish…
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The $64,000 question
By Julian Wood
As my colleague discussed in a recent column, we have to be careful that our desire to punish offenders and…
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Time to take a risk for the regions – Newsroom column
By Alex Penk
To lay out an explanation for the recommendations in our Taking the Right Risks policy paper on regional development, Alex Penk…
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Regional Development Policy Paper: Taking the Right Risks
By Julian Wood
Our previous work on regional development laid out the evidence that large parts of New Zealand are facing a 30 year wave…
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Planning to take the right risks for our regions
By Julian Wood
New Zealand’s Regional Development Minister Shane Jones has a problem. He has three billion dollars and three years to change…
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New Zealanders in harm’s way
While we may not have poisonous snakes and spiders in New Zealand, the risks of our natural surroundings are becoming…
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Back to the Trade Wars?
By Julian Wood
It seems the Trade Wars are back on. Battle-lines are being draw up like the musket wars of old, with…
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“No.8 wire” ethic is not enough
By Julian Wood
While New Zealanders are proud of the “number 8 wire” ethos that represents our ingenuity and resourcefulness, our actual productivity…
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Cigarettes becoming too hot to handle for dairies
By Julian Wood
Cigarettes, while not worth their weight in gold, are now worth one and a half times their weight in silver,…
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Getting fit to compete in the global game
By Julian Wood
While political and economic “change” is on everyone’s lips, we need to be clear about our current situation, and what…
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Read our column on The Spinoff and RNZ
By Alex Penk
This week, Alex Penk and Julian Wood’s column Triumph or disaster? A guide to the minimum wage increase featured on The…
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Getting real about the cost of water
By Julian Wood
I spent 10 years in China working on a beef cattle farm, and a fair amount of that time was…
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Funding roads in the electric future
By Julian Wood
In a recent blog, I made the case for regional petrol taxes, which would allow district and town authorities to…
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Press column: The price of a ticket on the Universal Basic Income train
By Alex Penk
Read Alex and Julian’s column, published in the Christchurch Press: The price of a ticket on the Universal Basic Income…
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Paying at the pump to revive our crumbling infrastructure
By Julian Wood
We hear a lot about Auckland’s infrastructure woes, but across the country there are regions desperately trying to fund their…
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Investing in people, regardless of return
By Julian Wood
Like the proverbial frog in the slowly heating pot, many of us are blissfully unaware of the change currently going…
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The Budget partnership between the people and our Government
By Julian Wood
Each year the Budget charts a broad course for the years ahead. It outlines how much money the Government has,…
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Tax the robots?
By Julian Wood
We’re now quite used to dire predictions concerning the future of work, job stability, and automation. As far back as…
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